Day Two Hundred Twenty-Three: Writing Fiction

I spent much of my free time as a child writing stories. Made up people, in made up places, doing made up things. No one forced me write the stories. I just did it because I found it entertaining. In my high school and early adult years, writing for fun ceased to be a priority. And when I finally came back to writing, I stuck strictly to non-fiction, which is how things have remained until the present.

I recently read that one way to discover happiness for your future is to think about what made you happy in the past. The article specifically said to think about what you loved doing when you were 10 and there was no pressure to do it; you just did it because you loved it. That got me thinking about how I filled my childhood hours. And that, of course, led me to think about writing stories.

So, I decided to try my hand at fiction again and spent much of my writing time today trying to tap out the beginning of a story with made up people, in made up places, doing made up things. The process is not quite as fast and easy as it used to be, but I'm excited to see how this little experiment goes.